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Congress may cut aid to poor as food prices soar

Food prices are projected to increase as much as 4.5 percent in the coming year. |
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Nearly a dozen members of Congress are attempting to draw attention to the issue this week by participating in an annual “food stamp challenge.” Each lawmaker can spend only $4.50 a day on meals, according to an email that Lee sent her colleagues.

Undoubtedly, food stamps will endure some scrutiny from the supercommittee looking to cut at least $1.2 trillion from budget deficits over the next decade.

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The House and Senate agriculture committees are fleshing out details on $23 billion in possible cuts to farm and nutrition programs they proposed last month to the supercommittee. Congressional staffers declined to comment on how much of that would come out of food stamps, saying the details were not finalized.

The debate coincides with a disturbing surge in food inflation.

Costs are expected to increase 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent this year, the Agriculture Department said last week. That compares with a relatively meager 0.8 percent uptick last year and 1.8 percent in 2009.

Those increases were driven largely by the increasing cost of restaurant meals, but the trend was inverted this year as the cost of dining at home grew a full percentage point faster than that of eating out.

The government has been grappling with ways to control food expenses, recognizing that this is an issue that goes beyond assistance programs.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has recently responded to concerns that speculation in the markets may be pushing food prices higher.

As mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the CFTC announced limits on the stakes traders not involved in commercial hedging could have in basic staples such as corn, wheat and soybeans, among other commodities.

But proponents of taming regulation worry that the new policy might not have much of an effect.

“We thought that the CFTC probably could have been more aggressive,” said Gawain Kripke, director of policy and research at Oxfam America, a worldwide relief and development nonprofit. “We would like them to be more ambitious.”

Commodity traders have traditionally argued that the natural intersection of supply and demand — and not excessive speculation — causes prices to rise.

In theory, farmers boost production in response to the higher prices, which would eventually increase the supply and push down prices.

A new study by the advocacy group Better Markets suggests that this cycle has been broken by brokerages pumping $200 billion to $300 billion into the markets through commodity index funds.

Because the funds invest in futures contracts that routinely expire on a monthly basis, the buying of replacement contracts has triggered the prices to curve upward over time, the study said.

The guaranteed monthly rollover has fueled volatility and jumps in prices, said Better Markets CEO Dennis Kelleher, who equated the profits made from trading in this phenomenon to shooting fish in a barrel.

“There’s no better fish in the barrel to take out,” he said, “than a fish that comes by predictably each month.”

I think using food stamps in restaurants is over the top, or buying candy with them. I also think it would be incredibly stupid / political suicide to cut food stamps at a time like this. There are so many wasteful and unnecessary programs one could target before even talking about cutting food stamps. Republicans don't need to come off as anti poor, but some of this junk has to go, not talking food stamps of course, but most people would realize that to keep things like food stamps, some of the other wasteful spending has to go. Republicans should focus of cutting the spending on the things we don't need, to preserve the programs we do need.

Let me guess they want to do this for the poors own good to improve their eating habits. One thing this whole Tea Party movement has done is give some of these people the confidence to state the way they really feel about their fellow citizens. It should be a warning to the majority that if you allow these morons to control anything for very long it will be like living in Nazi Germany. It's your choice all you have to do is vote. If you like what you hear and see from these hipocrites then let them stay in office, if not vote them out.

In many states lump sum,one time payments are excluded in determining elgibility for welfare benefits! In P.A. a neighbor on full benefits ,had a gas rights check for $86,000.00 but it didnt affect her programs due to one time not a regular monthly or weekly check! A large housing project in our town is full of folks that sell their food stamps to the first folks that will pay them 50 cents on the dollar!Then they go to church groups and food pantries to get their food!This is a big time business here and probably elsewhere! There is not enough investigators to even scatch the surface of the fraud, it IS rampant!

The foodstamp program is a joke.They are no longer "stamps" but are debit cards which are most frequently traded for cash and used to buy tobacco,alcohol and drugs.The professional welfare collecting class has made an art out scamming the "food stamp"system.

Republicans want to cut food stamps to people who have no jobs, or no homes and try day after day to get some type of work to make ends meet.

Yet Republicans want to keep tax subsidies, tax credits, and deductions to Big Oil when that can be taken away to bring down the deficit.

Republicans DO NOT CARE about people who are out of work.

Republicans NUMBER ONE goal, which they have repeated over and over again is to make President Obama a one-term president. That is more important than creating jobs, cutting the deficit, cutting tax subsidies towards the Gas, Oil, and Petroleum (GOP) industry, or supporting new industries and infrastructure that will bring America back up and make America lead again in these tough times.

Republicans should get rid of tax cuts and tax subsidies the GOP (Gas, Oil & Petroleum) industry, get rid of the tax cuts for individuals making $500,000 a year or more (as we all know they will be better even without their tax cuts), and tax cuts towards insurance and banks that continue to take advantage of consumers!

There is no way that 15% of the U.S., 44 million American's need food stamps. The bar to qualify has been lowered over and over again to the point where lots of folks who don't need it, but are happy to take another handout.

While Politico uses the broad terms "Congress" or "lawmakers" that are trying to cut Food Stamps, the fact is it is the Republicans who try to cut Food Stamps, or "Headstart" school lunches, because in their shriveled, black, little hearts, they can't stand that somebody they do not like might receive government assistance.

"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) unsuccessfully proposed an amendment last month that would have tightened eligibility requirements, arguing the explosive growth of the program over the past decade has most likely led to fraud and misuse." He is still at it, being morally bankrupt.

The Republicans are NEVER the party of reform. They are the masters of waste, fraud, and abuse with their 435-plus GOP-approved, war profiteers in Iraq and Afghanistan posting over $60 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse while failing in their nation-building and posting another $6 billion in stolen Iraqi funds. Add all the military-industrial-congressional-complex war profiteering and 911 fear profiteering and it is easy to see why Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush have created on their watches 93.74% or $14 trillion of the National Debt.

Notice how they consistently cut or attempt to cut programs for the poor, the working class, minorities, the elderly, women and children while maintaining tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and rich corporations. Remember, one out of four children in America lives in poverty and often goes hungry in a country with 400 billionaires, where there has been a 275% increase income from 1979-2007 for the top one percent, while incomes rose for the bottom 20% by just 18%. A rich country where the top 400 families make as much as the bottom 150 million. Where Fortune 500 CEOs make $10.6 million each per year or more than 400 times the average worker (it was 40 times in the '70s), or where corporations (like Exxon-Mobile or Koch Industries) make record profits while laying off workers.

Judgment Day cannot come soon enough for these bigoted, shallow, selfish, and greedy Republicans, but it is coming. No amount of GOP spin or burdening wealth will save them.

Helps? Yeah right. I'm sure it helps some people, but I have plenty of college-aged friends who signed up and receive the money or debit card every month. There regular shopping experience includes Whole Foods and other specialty locations.

Congress needs to do something, like kicking most of Obama's base off food stamps. These slugs sell their stamps for Boos and meth, I work next to a soup kitchen and see it every month. But then this is what the Democrats want, slugs voting for them, the entitlement nation.

"Neither party made poor people a priority".? Has this man been living under a rock? Who do you think Obama has been fighting for these years. Goodness. He wants to tax the rich. That alone is a LOT for the poor. People having affordable Health Insurance. The Republican Party has such a terrible platform that they literally lie to our Seniors, and the rest of the people. There's regulation in this Health Care Bill. Yes, premiums just might go up a little, so they can adjust before they deliver in 2014. I can't wait for the Big news that the Administration comes out with as this develops. All those lies will be ruled out, and stomped on. Republicans are in office now in Congress, because of lies. You wonder why it's so demonic. What would Jesus do? I do think we know the answer to that. Go read your Gospels.

"CEO Dennis Kelleher, who equated the profits made from trading in this phenomenon to shooting fish in a barrel."

My husband happens to be one of the hapless fish. We live on $1100 a month, he's a 69 year old Vietnam vet. We live in a tiny cabin with some land for a garden, but it's a zone three area and the food we did manage to grow was meager. We get $182 a month in foodstamps and it doesn't go far. Food prices are insane up here in Northern NY.

Increasing foodstamps and/or at least shipping additional US Gov. Surplus food would actually help the economy- and us. The food would need to be packaged and shipped, thus adding more jobs, millions of seniors and the disabled like us would put the food to good use immediately.

i work a full time job for $9.00 an hour. i receive $113.00 a month in foodstamps(i just got a $2.00 a month increase), i have a 16yr old daughter and this is suppossed to help us out. it does, for one week. what alot of people don't realize is that $113.00 a month doesn't go very far. i don't buy name brand foods, i can't buy fresh fruits/veggies(frozen ones are even getting expensive). i buy the basics. enough to be sure we don't starve to death. i'm honest in my reporting. i have to renew every six months. it's twice as hard to provide healthy meals as my daughter is a juvenille diabetic. i have stated these facts in SEVERAL posts in the past. it is unfair to catagorically lump all foodstamp recipiants into one group. i'm not denying that fraud occurs, but i don't think it's as rampant as people think it is.

i work a full time job for $9.00 an hour. i receive $113.00 a month in foodstamps(i just got a $2.00 a month increase), i have a 16yr old daughter and this is suppossed to help us out. it does, for one week. what alot of people don't realize is that $113.00 a month doesn't go very far. i don't buy name brand foods, i can't buy fresh fruits/veggies(frozen ones are even getting expensive). i buy the basics. enough to be sure we don't starve to death. i'm honest in my reporting. i have to renew every six months. it's twice as hard to provide healthy meals as my daughter is a juvenille diabetic. i have stated these facts in SEVERAL posts in the past. it is unfair to catagorically lump all foodstamp recipiants into one group. i'm not denying that fraud occurs, but i don't think it's as rampant as people think it is.

There are a lot of people in your position. Don't pay any attention to the big mouths who contribute non-sense to these pages. Most of these people are phonies. The only way they can feel important is to put other people down. They are very immature and very insecure. The program has requirements and you apparently know what they are, you meet them and you do not need to justify anything to anyone. I wish you the best and hope you get the break you deserve.

Congressmen and women have ensured through their bloated perks that throughout their lives, long after their have retired, that they will never, ever have to worry about where their next meal comes from. Neither they nor their family members will ever have to worry about where they will live. They have further ensured they will ALWAYS have cadillac health insurance policies. They know their children will have ivy league educations. Yet, these same people feel they are qualified to ensure that over 43 million citizens will starve to balance the budget? Until they take away some of their perks and know how the rest of us live, they should be very ashamed of even thinking about cutting these programs.